HC Deb 30 August 1887 vol 320 cc626-34

(Mr. Jackson, Mr. William Henry Smith.)

COMMITTEE.

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

Mr. T. E. ELLIS (Merionethshire)

Before you leave the Chair, Sir, I should like to obtain from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, or from the Attorney General, a pledge in regard to this Bill. I have once or twice called the attention of the House to the condition of the Welsh Charities; and when I raised the discussion in Supply the hon. Gentleman promised that inquiry should immediately be made, and, if necessary, that the Charity Commissioners should have an increase in their Staff. Now, I believe that this increase in their Staff will be given by this Bill; and I wish to ask the hon. Gentleman for a pledge that the first duty of the Commissioners will be to inquire into the state of these Welsh Charities, and to hold local inquiries in the various parishes and counties in Wales, in order to obtain some idea of the condition of them. I will refer to one or two cases, and will take one or two of the parishes at random. In one of them there are five charities, and of these the condition of three may be briefly summarized. One charity of £100 is based upon personal security, and has not been paid for many years. The second, a rent-charge of £2 10s. a-year, not paid for many years; and a third, a rent-charge of 15s. a-year, payment withheld. Now, that is the case with regard to dozens of parishes in Wales; and my desire is that the Charity Commissioners, now that they have an increase in their official Staff, should undertake the work of inquiring into them without delay. And I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to give me a pledge to that effect before you, Mr. Speaker, leave the Chair.

MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)

Before the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General replies I should like to say one word. I do not propose to offer any opposition to your leaving the Chair, Sir, or to getting this Bill into Committee tonight; but I shall oppose any further progress being made on it this evening, or rather this morning, because I observe that the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council, in whose Department this matter principally lies, is not present. I do not think it desirable to discuss this matter in his absence, and at this hour of the morning. I have gone over the Bill several times with, great care. There are several questions in it of considerable importance, and which some of us, at any rate, do not regard with particular favour. One of these questions relates to the general procedure of the Charity Commissioners, and I shall feel bound to discuss it in Committee at length. However, I will not oppose your leaving the Chair.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER) (Isle of Wight)

With regard to the observations of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. E. Ellis) as to the Welsh Charities, I would first point out to him that on the face of this Bill there is no necessity for any increase of the Staff of the Charity Commission at all. There is no proposal for an increase. It may be that if further work has to be done the Staff will require to be increased; but the principal object of the Bill is to secure greater efficiency in the very direction which the hon. Member pointed out. It will enable the Assistant Commissioners to conduct the local inquiries which the hon. Member demands of the Commission. It is, practically speaking, to enable the wish of the Commission to be more efficiently carried out. As far as possible I can assure the hon. Member it is the wish and desire of the Charity Commissioners to hold local inquiries of the character suggested. Now, with reference to the hon. and learned Member for the Camborne Division of Cornwall, the points he raised will be for the House to decide, and I hope that he will let the Bill go through Committee to-night.

MR. CONYBEARE

I can only speak with the indulgence of the House. I do not wish to press any undue opposition to the Bill; but I cannot see that the statement the hon. and learned Gentleman makes is correct, seeing that the words of the 1st sub-section of the 2nd clause distinctly are that the Charity Commissioners may appoint Assistant Commissioners. That seems to me a distinct provision that an additional staff shall be appointed. But the especial point I wish earnestly to impress upon Her Majesty's Government in connection with this Bill is, that if additional or Assistant Commissioners are to be appointed, they should appoint somebody who is able to speak on behalf of the working classes, in whose interest these charities were originally founded.

MR. SPEAKER

Order, order ! The hon. Member is not in Order in introducing new matter into his speech.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 (Appointment of Assistant Commissioners).

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Clause 2 stand part of the Bill."

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER

With reference to the observations made by the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Conybeare), I think he has not fully appreciated the scope of this clause. I repeat that it is not intended at all to increase the Staff of the Charity Commission, although I admit that if it becomes necessary power is taken by the Bill to do so. If you will kindly listen to me I will show that this clause merely changes the Inspectors into Assistant Commissioners. The Inspectors at present have only limited powers; and if the hon. and learned Member will look at Sub-section 4 of the clause he will observe that the power of appointing Inspectors under the Charitable Trusts Act, 1852, ceases. The object is really to have Assistant Commissioners, instead of Inspectors, and these Assistant Commissioners will be able to do the work of Commissioners. There is no intention to increase the number at present, unless it is found desirable to do so; and I need not assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that if that is done opportunities will be afforded for discussing the matter, as a Vote will have to be taken for the purpose.

MR. CONYBEARE

I am perfectly well satisfied with the explanation of the hon. and learned Gentleman. I knew I should get a frank one, and a perfectly clear statement from him. But my other point is that when this opportunity occurs, and this re-arrangement takes place, I want the Government to state distinctly that they will undertake that some of the Assistant Commissioners shall be appointed from that class which are principally interested in these charities. This is a matter in which working men have strong feelings throughout the country. I shall be perfectly satisfied if the Government will give me some assurance that they will consider this point. I do not want them to appoint persons who are not properly qualified to perform the duties that will have to be undertaken; but I can assure him that in the class mainly interested there are numbers of men fully qualified for the office; and if the Government will give mo some assurance of the kind I have suggested I will not press my objection any further to this clause. If they cannot give me that assurance, I am afraid I shall have to move to report Progress.

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER

The suggestion of the hon. and learned Member shall be carefully considered; but, having considerable knowledge of the duties which have to be performed by the Charity Commissioners, I do not think it desirable that I should hold out any hope that the working class Representatives, in the ordinary sense of the word, shall be appointed. It would not be at all possible to lay down that principle. I quite agree that the working classes have a great interest; but that interest they may turn to advantage by looking out cases in which injustice is done, and bringing all such questions under the notice of the Charity Commissioners. The hon. Member for Merionethshire (Mr. T. E. Ellis) has pointed to several cases in which he finds the charities are not applied, and if other Gentlemen know of similar cases we shall only be too glad to be informed of them; but I do not think it desirable to suggest that the Government are at all likely to accept the principle that members of the working classes will be appointed as Assistant Commissioners.

MR. CONYBEARE

It is perfectly absurd to state that there are not plenty of men representing the working classes who are not perfectly well qualified to perform these duties. If you cannot find persons of the calibre necessary for Assistant Commissioners, why are you abolishing Inspectors? At any rate, you might have appointed working class representatives as Inspectors, even if you did not think them fit for the post of Assistant Commissioners. I repeat, from my acquaintance with and knowledge of the working men whom I represent in this House, more than does anyone sitting on the Government Benches, that there are heaps of men who are in every sense as qualified and as fit for these duties as any hon. or right hon. Gentleman on the Benches opposite. It is all very well for the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General to say that, while admitting that they are interested in this matter, they can best perform their function by rooting out these abuses. They can do nothing of the kind. You may root out any amount of abuses, but you cannot get them rectified. You cannot stop the poor being robbed under the sanction of the Charity Commissioners until the Representatives of the class robbed are placed on the Commission. I will give you one instance of the difficulty of preventing this pillage. Everybody knows of the Dauntsey Charity, and how long it took Mr. William Saunders, who sat in this House, to get that matter taken up. How long was it before the truth of his argument was forced on the mind of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House? Had it not been for the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham (Mr. Jesse Collings) taking this matter up, with the authority which attached to him as a Member of the Liberal Unionist Party, and insisting on the Government setting this matter right, there would have been another instance of spoliation of this kind in the country. I say it must be and shall be stopped, and it can only be stopped by such a measure as that which I propose. I do not want to put a majority of working class Representatives on this Commission; but I say that they ought to be represented on it, and that the people of the country will insist that the people who are principally interested in these charities shall have that representation, and shall have some shred of their heritage secured to them in the future by having their men placed in a position so that their representations shall receive proper attention. It is because there is this strong feeling existing that I press this upon the attention of the Government. I have taken it up, too, because the hon. Member for the Haggerston Division of Shoreditch (Mr. Cremer) told me the other evening he intended to take this step himself, and impress the importance of this on the Government. He did not know, I presume, that this matter was coming on at 3 o'clock this morning, and be he is not in his place; but I do insist most strongly that this matter shall not be snuffed out as the Attorney General seems to desire. This must be considered seriously by the Government; and as they are not able to give sufficient serious consideration to it at a quarter to 3 in the morning, I beg, Mr. Courtney, to move that you report Progress. I cannot see what other remedy I have. There is no Amendment on the Paper by means of which this matter can be raised in Committee. In order to compromise matters I will put it in this way—I do not want to be unduly pertinacious or hard upon the over-worked Members of the Government; therefore, I will waive my right to persist in this Motion at this unseemly hour of the morning, on the understanding that the Government will give some further slight consideration to the point I have pressed upon them, and that they will favourably consider the Amendment I will put on the Paper for Report.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)

the hon. and learned Gentleman is speaking entirely under a misapprehension. This is not a Bill to alter the constitution of the Charity Commission as such; it is a Bill to empower the substitution of Assistant Commissioners for Inspectors, so as to make those officials more efficient for the work of the Commission, to give them larger powers, and, at the same time, to secure a reduction of expenditure. But when the hon. and learned Member talks about the representation of the working classes on the Commission, I can understand his object is to secure for that class the endowments to which they are entitled. But he is quite mistaken in supposing that he can attain his object by insisting on gentlemen representing the working classes being placed in the position of Assistant Commissioners, and to conduct inquiries without the training and the knowledge which, in the judgment of the Government, are necessary to enable the Commissioners to do their work. Evidently, he is under a misconception as to the scope and operation of this Bill. Anything we can do to make the functions of the Commissioners thoroughly efficient in accordance with the spirit of the Report of the Committee will certainly be done by the Government. This Bill is simply intended, as I have said, to make the machinery more efficient than it now is.

MR. CONYBEARE

I know that you here bring in a Bill to re-arrange, in some way, the composition of the Charity Commission; and, therefore, I say we have a perfect right to avail ourselves of this opportunity to impress upon the Government the views we entertain as to the constitution of the Commission. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to assure us that everything shall be done in order to secure the interests of the poor people; but everything has not been done in the past, and it is because the Commissioners have been so shamefully false to their duties, so far as the working classes are concerned, that we insist on this point. All I can say with reference to the somewhat insulting tone which has been adopted with reference to the working classes is, that I can pledge myself to find 12 men in my own constituency every whit as well qualified to act as Assistant Commissioners as any hon. Gentleman sitting on the Benches opposite. I shall ask, at any rate, if we proceed with this Bill now, that the Report stage shall not be taken before Thurs day, so as to enable me, if I think fit, to place Amendments on the Paper.

MR. T. E. ELLIS

I wish to make one more suggestion to the hon. and learned Attorney General on this clause. This question of the Welsh Charities will give a considerable amount of work to the Charity Commission for a long time to come. He says that two Inspectors' offices must before long become vacant, and Assistant Commissioners must be appointed. I would ask the Government to adopt some suggestion with regard to filling the vacancy, and that a Welsh-speaking Commissioner should be appointed to do the work in connection with the inquiries in Wales. I asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to-night quite a simple question with regard to a certain Report being issued in Welsh, seeing that the Welsh-speaking peasantry took a great interest in the matter; but, with his usual supreme disregard for simple justice, the right hon. Gentleman refused. I say it was wanton conduct— [Cries of "Order, order!"] Well, I will withdraw the expression if it is un-parliamentary.

THE CHAIRMAN

I beg to call the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that he is wandering widely from the point before the Committee.

MR. T. E. ELLIS

My point is this. If the abuses of charities in Welsh-speaking counties are to be found out, and if those charities are to be rightly managed, you must have Commissioners who can understand the language of the people. I have an instance here of a mountainous parish, the inhabitants of which speak Welsh only. There are charities there to the amount of £250 annually which we say are misapplied.

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER

Under the clause Commissioners can be appointed temporarily for special purposes; and I need hardly say that if inquiry is to be held in a parish where the people speak Welsh only, a Commissioner would, no doubt, be appointed who is acquainted with the Welsh language.

Clause agreed to.

Clauses 3 and 4 agreed to.

Clause 5 (Declaration as to power of official trustee of charity lands to take and hold land).

MR. CONYBEARE

There is a question arising on this clause.

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER

In reply to the hon. and learned Member, I may say the object of the clause is to save expense, and to enable a simple conveyance of land to be carried out.

Clause agreed to.

Remaining Clause and Schedulesagreed to.

Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Thursday.